Sweet Songbird

by Sweet Songbird (retail) (epub)

  ‘I’ll get it.’ She left him sitting, his head back, eyes closed, one hand fondling Poppy’s bright, golden head. As she poured the brandy she sent up a small prayer of thanks. He was exhausted, but he was whole and undamaged – whatever might happen now between them, even if it meant, as she feared, the pain of parting, she would never cease to give thanks for that.

  When she re-entered the room he lay exactly as she had left him, fast asleep.

  He stayed with them for the next few days as something close to civil war raged in the streets of the city. A few days after the defeat at Buzenval the Hôtel de Ville was attacked and stormed once again, but this time not without deaths and casualties. In a terrible foretaste of the future, Frenchmen had shed French blood and a fatal step had been taken. Kitty told a frightened Louise to stay with her family. A well-recovered Jem went out each morning, foraging for supplies and for news, and she was on tenterhooks each day until he returned. Dense fog still enveloped the city, rolling against the windows, enwrapping and enclosing the streets, eerily disorientating. The snippets of news that Jem brought back were even more eagerly awaited than the supplies he brought from the Legation. So-called secret armistice talks were being held with the Prussians. And though the German guns still belched and bellowed the feeling was strong that the end must be near.

  From the very first night, by tacit agreement, Jem had laid a mattress in the warmth of the kitchen, whilst Kitty continued to share the bedroom with the children. Kitty, all but exhausted herself by the efforts to fill the extra mouths, made no more mention to Jem of her feelings for him. She realized that she had failed. If the strange, complicated, sensitive Jem decided himself to meet her halfway, then so be it. Almost above all else, she wanted peace, and freedom, and safety for the children.

  The heartache would come later, she knew.

  On the day that the guns at last fell silent it was Michael who saw it first. ‘Jemby!’ he said, tugging imperiously at Jem’s tattered coattails. ‘No more bang!’

  Kitty looked up from her efforts to teach earnest small Poppy, smiling at Michael’s use of the silly nickname he had given Jem. ‘No, there isn’t.’

  Jem was sitting on the floor with Michael, overcoat on, and a scarf wrapped several times about his neck, fingerless gloves warming his hands as he sketched his godchild. He tilted his head, listening, his face alert. ‘I wonder for how long?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Kitty laughed, a little shakily. ‘How silly of us not to have noticed. Jem – do you think—?’

  ‘Wait. We can’t be sure.’

  The day crept by in silence. Mist still wreathed the roadway and a strange half-light added to the eerie stillness. At length, abruptly, Jem threw down his pencil and leapt to his feet. ‘It’s no good. I’m going out to see what’s going on.’

  ‘Be careful.’

  ‘I will.’

  She settled Poppy, caught up with Jem at the door, handed him a second scarf. He took it and wound it about his neck. Then with a quick, helpless gesture that touched her almost to tears, very swiftly and gently, he kissed her. He stood for a moment, looking at her, his open face the picture of baffled unhappiness. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I know I love you. I can’t seem to make myself—’

  ‘—forget Luke?’ she finished for him.

  Despite his obvious unhappiness his jaw was stubborn, the line of his mouth tight. ‘I won’t be – I can’t be – second best. Can’t you see that?’

  ‘You wouldn’t be.’ Her voice was steady.

  He shook his head.

  ‘Come home with us,’ she said.

  He turned away, ran swiftly down the stairs and out into the street. Kitty dashed the tears from her eyes and turned to the children.

  Two long hours later she heard his step on the stairs. She was up and at the door before he had reached it. She closed the door behind him, and leaned against it. He turned. His movements were oddly slow, almost awkward. ‘It’s over,’ he said.

  She swallowed. Said nothing.

  ‘A hundred and thirty days,’ he said. ‘I just worked it out. A hundred and thirty days. And now it’s over.’

  The most extraordinary emotions were warring in Kitty’s brain; excitement, overwhelming relief, a strange, bitter sadness. ‘Poor Paris,’ she said, softly.

  He lifted his head. Nodded. There was an odd moment of silent mourning. Then, ‘It’s over!’ he shouted, exultantly, ‘over! Get the children. We’re going to the Legation.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Now.’ He took a breath, smiled his wide, warm smile. ‘You’re safe, Songbird, all of you. The trains will be running again. And you’re going home—’

  (iii)

  The Gare du Nord, its recent history graphically illustrated by hastily stacked remnants of the balloon factory it had become during the siege, was teeming with anxious, jostling people. Eli Washburne, the popular American Legate who had done so much for the people of Paris over the past months, proved every bit as helpful and influential as Jem had claimed he was. The train that Kitty and the children were about to board might not be the first one that had left the stricken city – that had in fact left an hour or two earlier – but his swift efficiency in obtaining passes, travel papers and seats had left Kitty almost breathlessly thankful. The courteous and helpful Mr Washburne had been delighted, he had assured her, to help. Dazed as she was at the sudden speed of events, his obvious admiration had come for Kitty as a strange reminder of a life she had all but forgotten and to which she was, astoundingly, returning.

  ‘Charmed, Miss Daniels, absolutely charmed!’ he had said, warmly. ‘I had the very great pleasure of attending some of your performances at the Moulin d’Or some time ago. I shall be taking this rascal to task for keeping you under his hat!’ He had grinned at the abashed Jem. ‘If we’d known you were here, we could have arranged some very pleasant entertainment—’

  She had smiled, and nodded.

  Eli Washburne had turned back to Jem. ‘You’ll be deserting us too, no doubt? Don’t blame you, m’boy, don’t blame you a bit—’ And Kitty had turned away from Jem’s shaken head, his muttered explanations, aware of the old man’s shrewd eyes flicking from Jem’s red face to her own wooden one. ‘Well,’ he had said then, ‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There’s no fool like a young fool, Miss Daniels, no Sir,’ and she had had to smile, and agree, wanting nothing so much as to get away, to finish it.

  And now here they were. She clung tightly to the children’s hands. Their luggage was aboard, so the young American who had escorted her to the train had assured her, though to be honest so anxious was she to be on her way that she would quite cheerfully have abandoned it in the middle of the crowded platform if it had been necessary to do so.

  Where was Jem? She had thought she had not wanted to see him – had told him, indeed, how much she detested goodbyes, and he had sensibly agreed, but now the moment had come, she wanted so much to see him once more that it hurt.

  ‘This way, ma’am. It’s going to be rather crowded, I fear – but at least Mr Washburne secured seats for you and the children—’

  ‘Thank you. And – please – thank Mr Washburne again for me.’

  ‘I will, ma’am.’

  Where was Jem?

  The young man, clean-cut and deferential, handed her into a carriage already almost full. Kitty squeezed herself and Poppy into the seat, took Michael onto her lap. The young man touched his cap and left them. She stared out of the window. She felt tired to the point of exhaustion – deflated and irritable, with disappointingly none of the elation that she had always anticipated would accompany this moment. There was still no sign of Jem. He was going to let her go without even saying goodbye—

  Michael wriggled on her lap. ‘Where’s Jemby?’ he asked, suddenly, with the uncanny sixth sense of the very young.

  The sound of that silly nickname almost released the pent-up tears. Why hadn’t he come? For all that she had said, she had expected him. He must hav
e been afraid of what she might say, what she might do to try to persuade him to come with them. Afraid of what? Afraid of the hurt? Or simply – humiliatingly – the embarrassment? She did not know. Would never know. She remembered once saying to him that he was in love with Paris – that no woman would stand a chance of taking him from the city. Self-evidently she had been right.

  ‘Want Jemby,’ Michael said, stubbornly.

  The carriage had filled to bursting point. Not just passengers, but their luggage took up every square inch of space. A large man stood in front of her, leaning uncomfortably upon her cramped knees, blocking the light, his suitcase jammed painfully against her foot. Michael squirmed again. She held him firmly, trying not to think of the long haul north to the Channel port of Boulogne. Boulogne. Dear God, how long it seemed—

  ‘Where’s Jemby?’ the child asked, again fretfully.

  The train jerked. The huge man staggered, stumbling painfully upon her foot.

  ‘There ’e is,’ Poppy said, calmly. ‘There’s Jem.’

  ‘What? Where?’ Frantically Kitty craned her neck, looking out of the window. A whistle shrieked. The train jerked again and began, infinitely slowly, to move. The platform was empty but for a few uniformed officials and two Prussian guards. ‘Where?’

  Poppy giggled, tugging her sleeve. ‘There.’

  Kitty followed the line of the small, pointing finger. The engine screeched again and slowly the carriages clanked over points long unused. The passengers swayed with the movement. The corridor outside the carriage was packed. People leaned upon the handrails that ran along the windows, or sat upon suitcases and trunks. Jem was wedged uncomfortably between a man with a huge untidy bundle in his arms and an enormous woman wearing an unlikely, flamboyant flower-trimmed hat. He was watching Kitty. Catching her eye, he gave a small, self-mocking smile and lifted his shoulders – in fact the only part of him he could reasonably attempt to move – in a wryly graphic shrug. Here I am, it said, make what you will of it—

  She blinked.

  ‘There’s Jemby,’ Michael said, satisfied, and thrust his thumb into his mouth, burrowing into her lap.

  ‘Yes, dear,’ she said.

  ‘On the puffer,’ he said, sleepily, around his thumb.

  ‘On the train,’ she corrected him. ‘Jemby’s on the train.’

  A small hand crept into hers. Poppy smiled, and nestled closer. Magically the world had changed. A small, capricious snatch of tune hummed in her mind. ‘Who d’you see in Mayfair, Strolling with the girls—’ For the first time in months she allowed herself to remember the brilliance and excitement of the London stage.

  Trailing its plume of smoke, the train rattled northward, through the encampments of the enemy, away from a city that after four months of privation and violence seethed now on the brink of doomed and bloody revolution.

  Ahead lay England, home and safety.

  Poppy was watching Jem. He pulled a sudden, silly, mock-ferocious face, and she giggled. Then his eyes moved to Kitty and the gleam of mockery died. For a long, wary moment they watched each other. And then, together, they smiled; and the shadow was gone. His eyes not leaving Kitty’s face, Jem began to push his way through the crush to her side.

  First published in Great Britain in 1987 by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd

  This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by

  Canelo Digital Publishing Limited

  57 Shepherds Lane

  Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU

  United Kingdom

  Copyright © Teresa Crane, 1987

  The moral right of Teresa Crane to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 9781788633604

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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